7: THE ESCAPE

‘The chains were hot. Then cold. Then… gone.’

They fell away like mist, metal turning to dust as I sat up in the dark, gasping. The silver had burned into my wrists — but the wounds were already healing. Too fast—My wolf was active again, and she wasn’t silent anymore.

I didn’t need telling twice. I stood, dizzy but steady, and pressed my palm against the rusted cell door, it creaked open before I touched it. I blinked, someone had unlocked it. I stepped into the corridor.

Silence, no guards, no footsteps. Just the heavy smell of damp stone and something sharper beneath it, blood. I moved through the tunnel on bare feet, heart hammering, tracking the scent. It wasn’t fresh — older, sour like a warning.The stairwell loomed ahead, lit by a single guttering torch.

I was halfway up when I saw him. Jarek, one of the younger warriors. Not high-ranked, not trusted but kind. He stood at the top, breathing hard, holding a ring of keys slick with sweat.

His eyes widened when he saw me free. “You…” he exhaled. “You got out on your own?”

I stopped a step below him. “You unlocked my cell.”

He swallowed. “They were going to kill you. Tomorrow night. Quietly. Make it look like you choked on wolfsbane.”

I froze, strength left my breath.

“Cassia signed the order,” he whispered. “Said you tried to hex the Luna.”

I laughed, too sharp.

He stepped forward. “I couldn’t let them do it. Not after what you did for my sister. You saved her from bleeding out, and she was just a nobody—an Omega like you.”

“Like me,” I said, voice hollow.

“You can’t go back through the village. They’ve already posted your name. Said you ran. Said you were feral.” He pressed a scrap of parchment into my palm — a wanted notice. My face drawn in ink. A bounty stamped beneath it, Cassia was erasing me in real-time.

“You have to go east,” Jarek said. “Past the river. Into the Outlands.”

“Rogues live out there.”

He nodded. “Yeah. And some of them might still remember what it means to honor the old blood.” He reached into his cloak and handed me a pouch, dried meat, and a dagger. A small vial of silver root salve, and last — a ring. A strange one, old—Marked with runes I couldn’t read.

“Wear that,” he said. “It’s from before the Kingdoms. My grandmother said it keeps scent cloaked for three days.”

I stared at him. “You just signed your death.”

“No,” he said, meeting my gaze. “I just gave you a second life.” Then he shoved the torch from the wall, plunged the corridor into darkness, and turned to run. I hesitated just a second before bolting.

The tunnels twisted and narrowed. Once, I swore I heard a whisper not in my mind, in the stone. A voice older than the dungeon itself. “You are being hunted. But not by them.”

I stopped cold. Not by them? By who, then? I pressed on and then, just before the outer grate, I found it. A door hidden in shadow. Curious, I pried it open, Inside: scrolls, dozens of them, ancient, sealed with healer wax, and labeled with names I recognized;

Cassia.

Darius.

Me.

I lifted one.

“Subject 3: Bond Severance Under Magical Interference.”

My heart stopped. These weren’t just scrolls, they were experiments, logs. Records of scent manipulation, bond testing, emotional reconditioning.

They’d been watching me. Not just imprisoning me, ‘studying me.’ Someone higher than Cassia had been involved. Someone with access to healer records, experimental rituals, and the authority to bury it all. I shoved the scrolls into my cloak and fled.

I didn’t breathe until I saw moonlight again. The trees opened around me like a mouth. The forest whispered, I was outside the boundary. Beyond the bond lands—past the reach of her power, but I wasn’t free, not yet. Because someone, somewhere, had orchestrated this.

And now that I am gone? They would come hunting. Not to kill me but to finish what they started.

The forest didn’t welcome me. It watched, every step past the border was a gamble. The trees here were older, the scentlines are broken. No packs, no rules, no territory claims—just silence and the wind breathing between twisted trunks.

Rogues lived out here and something worse. I moved fast, knife clutched to my thigh, Jarek’s scent-cloaking ring burning cold against my finger. I hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten since the dungeon. But I couldn’t stop. Not until I put fire between me and what Cassia had planned, not until I figured out what the scrolls meant.

It was dusk when I heard it snap a branch, deliberate and I froze mid-step. No birdsong, no wind, just tension. I pivoted, fast, dagger raised, and he stepped out of the trees.

He was tall, silent, eyes sharp as steel set in a bronze face. His dreadlocks were tied back, but several hung loose over one shoulder, woven with small bone beads, Rogue.

His scent hit a second later—ash, pine, faint heat and leather, wild, unmarked. He didn’t draw a weapon, he just looked at me like I’d already disappointed him.

My grip tightened. “Say one word and I gut you.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink, but his voice, when it came, was low and calm. “If you were going to gut me, you would’ve done it already.”

“Try me,” I snapped.

He tilted his head. “Your scent’s off.”

I froze.

“I’m wearing a ring,” I said slowly. “Concealed aura.”

He stepped forward.

“Stop right there—” I barked.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, voice softer.

I glanced down, my side had reopened. I hadn’t noticed.

He slowly raised his hands, palms up. “Let me stitch it. You’re not going to make it another hour like that.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I know what they did to you,” he said.

My throat tightened. “You don’t know me,” I said.

He stepped forward again—slowly, calmly, deliberately defying me. His voice dropped, and with it came something else—a pull, not bond, recognition.

“I know your name is Ayla Riverwind. You were the healer in Northmoon Pack. You were bonded, rejected, and scent-stolen.”

“How the hell do you—”

“I know because I watched them do it.”

I didn’t lower the knife, but I didn’t breathe, either. “You’re lying,” I whispered.

“No,” he said. “I was there. I saw when it happened. And I’ve been following your trail ever since.”

I lunged forward, blade at his throat. He didn’t flinch. I stared into his eyes, they glowed faintly. Not wolf-gold—violet, a rogue seer.

“You knew,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you stop them?”

“I didn’t know you were the target,” he said. “Not until I saw your blood on her hands.”

Cassia. He meant Cassia. I pulled back, heart pounding.

He sighed. “Let me stitch your side. Or don’t… But if you pass out here, something else will find you before I do.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s the first smart thing you’ve said.”

I didn’t lower the knife but I followed him. His camp was nothing—just a hollow beneath a ridge, shielded by brush. A dying fire, a threadbare blanket. He handed me water and a pouch of dried meat. I didn’t thank him. He cleaned my wound in silence, and worked fast, efficiently, no wasted movement.

“You’re a healer,” I said, watching his hands.

“Was,” he murmured. “Before I stopped answering to anyone.”

He stitched without pain root. I didn’t ask for it.

When he finished, I leaned back against the ridge and said, “What’s your name?”

“Rylan.”

“Your full name.” I demanded.

“Rylan Stormblade.”

I blinked, iknew that name. Stormblade was a bloodline that vanished two decades ago—after a rogue Luna poisoned an entire council during a mate-claim trial.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

He smirked. “So are you.”

We sat in silence for a long moment.

Then he said, “They weren’t just trying to destroy your bond. They were using you as a vessel.”

I turned my head. “For what?”

He stared into the fire. “To feed something old. Something scentless.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looked at me and for the first time, I saw it—fear.

“They’re trying to create a wolf without a bond.”

I blinked. “That’s impossible.”

“No,” he said. “It’s forbidden… But not impossible.”

I remembered the scrolls. The rituals. The records are marked with my name.

“You think I was meant to become one?”

“I think you still might.”